


Back for the New Prophet

by EHyde



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EHyde/pseuds/EHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the only archangel left, it's Gabriel's duty to protect the prophet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back for the New Prophet

Already Gabriel was beginning to regret the whole “saving the world” thing. He’d meant it when he’d said he wanted it to be over, he really had. Not just the neverending conflict between his brothers, but—well, everything. The world had gotten boring. As the Trickster, he’d been thinking up new punishments for the same old sins for centuries, and it just wasn’t  _fun_  anymore.

But he wasn’t going to change the fate of the world without sticking around to see how it turned out. Nope, no way. So while Lucifer and Michael and their chosen vessels thought he was dead he’d just skipped forward a few years. Easy enough to convince someone you were dead when you technically didn’t exist at all. It was just—showing up in 2013 to discover he was the only archangel left had been a shock. He’d told the Winchesters how to reopen the cage so that they could put Lucifer back where he belonged, not so they could throw Michael in there too. And Raphael was actually _dead_.

Still. He’d done his part. He wasn’t going to get involved again; Heaven could take care of itself.

_Shit._  It really couldn’t, could it?

Well, too bad for them! He wasn’t theirs anymore. Hadn’t been theirs in over a millenium.  _Only archangel left_ , he reminded himself.  _You wouldn’t have to be theirs. They could be yours._  But no. He’d officially taken the part of humanity, broken stupid idiots that they were.

Going back to being the Trickster when he was officially On Humanity’s Side felt a bit weird, though. But what else was there? The world was just as much of a mess as before, and it wasn’t going to end, and he had no idea what to do in it. He briefly considered Falling, but—being humanity’s ally was one thing; actually being human? Eugh. Maybe he could rig it so he was born as a human but still had all his powers? No, if he did that he’d probably end up in tights and a cape fighting crime in New York City and—just no. Besides, Dad had done that once and it didn’t end well.

How  _had_  he ended up in this position, anyway? What had happened to Raphael? Gabriel cast just enough of his Grace back in time to see for himself.

Huh. Castiel had  _died_ , died and been brought back with nearly the full power of an archangel himself. And Raphael’s first action after that had been to take the prophet.

That was wrong.

Well, technically it wasn’t. His work was done; the prophet was entitled to his bodily reward in Heaven. Raphael may have skimped on the chariot of fire, but technically, what was supposed to happen, happened. But Gabriel had been Dad’s messenger back in the old days—dealing with the prophets had been  _his_  thing, and you learned to play it by ear.  _He_  wouldn’t have taken Chuck, he’d have let him live out a long, uneventful life on Earth. A much better reward for someone whose biggest wish was for Heaven to leave him alone.

No, in taking the prophet, Raphael had done something else. He’d taken a powerful ally away from the Winchesters, and therefore away from Castiel. Had Raphael been that callous with the prophets all along? Had they all just been weapons to him? It almost made Gabriel regret leaving Heaven in the first place—he’d liked dealing with prophets; some of them knew how to have a pretty good time.

… there was another prophet now, wasn’t there? Gabriel supposed he should at least look in on the guy.

Kevin Tran, Gabriel saw,  _wasn’t_  one of the ones who knew how to have a good time. Well, he was looking at the kid’s past, before he became a prophet, but—he was one of those  _annoying_  humans who had to be the best at everything just so they could be the best at everything else. Do the best in school so you can get the best test score so you can go to the best college so you can—the Trickster had dealt with people like that. It had been exhausting. Give them more and more impossible tasks to complete and they tended to fall apart before they realized that they didn’t have to do everything, and—

_Shit._

This kid was a  _prophet_ , he was gonna get himself mixed up with Heaven and Hell and the  _Winchesters_ , for Dad’s sake, and that went way beyond just desserts, that was downright cruel.

He brought himself fully back to the present and looked in on Kevin Tran again. Yeah … that wasn’t good. The kid had locked himself up on a boat and—was a diet consisting solely of frozen hot dogs better or worse than one of locusts? Gabriel honestly couldn’t say. But he wasn’t under attack; he didn’t need protection in the traditional sense. What he needed was to relax. If Sam and Dean could take time off and visit a freaking _renaissance faire_ , then surely the prophet could—but the only one keeping him here was himself. Kevin Tran wasn’t going to leave unless he was carried away, and he wasn’t going to take a break before he broke.

_Well …_

It wasn’t even  _close_  to the cruelest trick he played, he told himself while telling Kevin Tran that his mother was dead. Hell, he’d played a meaner trick on Sam Winchester. And the prophet was past the worst of his panic before Gabriel had even taken him away, so—

“Where the hell are we?”

Okay, fine, he was still panicking. “Soviet Russia,” said Gabriel. “Shh, the concert’s starting.” It was a construct, of course—wouldn’t make a difference if Kevin screamed his way through the whole thing—but it was the principle of the thing. “Your mom’s fine, by the way. She’s safe; you’re safe. But you bought it, right? You thought I was Crowley? I was worried for a bit there that I was hamming it up too much, but that might not actually be possible.”

“What—what is all this?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You play the cello, right—that’s your thing? Are you really going to question the chance to hear Rostropovich in person?”

“I’m a prophet of the Lord,” said Kevin tersely. “My ‘thing’ is translating the Word of God.”

“Not tonight!”

Kevin looked at the orchestra as it began to play, then back at Gabriel. “Who  _are_  you?”

He smiled. “They call me Gabriel.”

**Author's Note:**

> This will be AU in less than twenty-four hours (well, unless *I'm* a prophet), but whatever! I thought I'd have fun with the idea anyway.


End file.
